...Year in Review continued
The YFN reached a significant milestone holding its 50th event in the first half of 2021 and by the end of the year, 65 events had taken place since its inception three years ago. We also added new members to the ‘Virtual’ YFN organising committee in 2021 and appointed a new chairperson. In October, the YFN provided five young panellists for the seminars at the Multimodal exhibition and conference, and they did themselves and their employers proud. During the same month, seven of them raised over £1,000 for industry charity Transaid, running around the London Olympic Park. Communications and Industry Promotion In 2021, BIFA continued to keep Members appraised of association and industry developments affecting their operations. The main platforms continued to be direct member notices, supported by the BIFAlink magazine, the website, the fortnightly eNewsletter, and the training eNewsletter, as well as a strengthened presence through various social media channels. The trade association’s communications activities were strengthened by the appointment of a communications manager in October and a reorganisation of the trade association’s activities in this area to create a formal communications department from January 2022.
schools close to the UK’s freight gateways for air and sea freight, and their associated logistics communities, and provide opportunities for Members to build-up their own relationships with these schools. In 2021, through these partnerships, we saw Members support mock interviews, speed networking, careers fairs, workplace visits and give specific careers talks. However, the idea behind the guidebook was to inspire Members to do their own convinced that there has never been a better time to promote the industry as a sustainable and stable career option with abundant opportunities. Our goal has remained to getting all to join forces and get out there to bring the sector to the attention of young people. Our aim? To banish the “oh, I fell into the industry” refrain and inspire young people to select the sector as a career of choice. thing locally as well. In 2021, BIFA remained
The increased profile of BIFA Members and the freight forwarding and logistics sector (already heightened by COVID-19 and EU-exit) was further enhanced in 2021 by the global supply chain crisis. In 2021, there was a substantial increase in BIFA’s involvement with the mainstreammedia and the trade press, and less excitable journalists from the likes of Bloomberg, Reuters and the Financial Times continued to see BIFA as a reliable, credible and quotable source. With non sector-specific journalists scrambling to understand the fundamentals of the freight industry, we had to carefully manage engagement due to the sheer volume of enquiries, often of no relevance or benefit to the work of BIFA Members. The 2020 Freight Service Awards ceremony was held virtually over four days in January 2021; and with the easing of lockdown rules, BIFA was able to proceed with plans for a freight forwarder village at the Multimodal event, which the organisers had to postpone several times from its scheduled 2020 date, eventually taking place in October 2021. It was very successful and BIFA had a high profile at the centre of the Forwarders’ Village as well as playing a leading role in the seminars during the event. In September, we produced a useful guide for Members, focussing on school and college engagement, as part of our aim is to establish partnerships with specific
The 12-month period July 2020-June 2021, saw 155 new apprenticeship starts on the International Freight Forwarding Specialist (IFFS) standard, with 82% being under the age of 24. However, BIFA remains convinced that in order to build a resilient industry, prepared for future challenges, more new starters are required. In 2021, there was still a huge skills shortage in the Customs sector, so with the IFFS standard requiring Customs as a mandatory module including a training qualification, this apprenticeship provides an opportunity for Members to develop individuals with Customs knowledge to support their businesses. In the second half of 2021, we reformed the IFFS Trailblazer group which is collaborating with us to review the content of the apprenticeship standard and ensure that it is still relevant following the changes in many freight forwarding processes and procedures of the last few years, particularly in relation to EU-Exit. Following on from its success in 2020 the ‘Virtual’ Young Forwarder Network (YFN) continued to thrive in 2021, with online events held every two or three weeks. Clearly young people continued to see the value of the network, which enables them to broaden their industry knowledge, and the wide variety of topics provided by our guest speakers makes attending for one hour, twice per month, a good use of their time.
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BIFA Annual Report & Accounts 2021 | bifa.org
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